The Assad regime said the game was “a goodwill gesture on the road to national reconciliation” but civilians in east Aleppo, who have been living under months of intense regime airstrikes, dismissed the invitation as a publicity stunt.

“The governorate of Aleppo calls on you to attend a friendly football match as a goodwill gesture on the road to national reconciliation,” the message read. “Any of the citizens can participate in the football match.”

The match is scheduled for noon on Thursday but there is no sign that the offer will be taken up.

To reach the football ground, people in east Aleppo would have to come through a government-sanctioned “humanitarian corridor” and enter territory controlled by the regime.

A Syrian rescuer carries a woman who was rescued from the rubble of a building following reported airstrikes on Aleppo's rebel-held district of al-Hamra on SundayCredit:
AFP

“It’s just a media hype to show the criminal regime in a good light in front of the international community,” said one resident. “They will claim the rebels don’t accept any initiative of good will when they are invited by the killers to play football on the remains of the injured and the dead.”

Fares Shehabi, a pro-regime MP from Aleppo, tweeted his anger as it became clear that rebel fighters would not take up the offer.

“We asked them nicely to leave our city, we even invited them to a friendly football match! They refused! No one can blame us for what's next!”

We asked them nicely to leave our city, we even invited them to a friendly football match!They refused! no one can blame us for what's next! pic.twitter.com/XKThlqHhak

Even as people in east Aleppo discussed the invitation, residents said that regime rockets continued to pound the city. Heavy shelling rocked the area on Tuesday night and the regime allegedly dropped chlorine gas over the weekend, killing four children and their parents.

Residents marveled that the regime was trying to organise a football game when east Aleppo's hospitals were filled with wounded and running short of supplies. "They have time to play football matches, but we don't where and how to move the injured?" one man said.

A girl makes her way through the debris of a damaged site that was hit last week in east AleppoCredit:
Reuters

The regime hopes that the offensive will finally crush opposition inside the city, one of its main goals since rebel forces first took seized control in 2012.

Even as the fighting rages on the ground, a propaganda war is being waged between the two sides over the fate of the civilians inside east Aleppo.

The government of Bashar al-Assad has insisted that civilians are free to come out of the area and accused rebel fighters of preventing them leaving so they can be used as “human shields” against advancing regime forces.

The rebels say they are not stopping anyone from leaving and that civilians would rather stay inside east Aleppo under heavy airstrikes than risk torture and imprisonment if they submit to the Assad regime.